Micromet stock jumps on study results - San Antonio Business Journal:

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Shares of Bethesda-based Micromet MITI) rose $1.05 to $5.67 at 10:31 a.m., or 22 after increasing as much as 39 percentto $6.400 a share in Monday trade. Micromet shares have more than doubled in the last12 months. On Micromet announced that its antibody blinatumomab showed a high responsew rate in a phase 2 clinicapl study of acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients with minimakresidual disease. Blinatumomab is a therapeutic antibody that activatesza patient's T cells to seek out and destroy cancetr cells.
Micromet said that the patients in the trial were in complete hematological remission following intensewchemotherapy regimens, but retained a detectabled level of acute lymphoblastic leukemiq cancer cells in theier bone marrow. That is the condition called minimallresidual disease. Various studies have confirmed that patientxs with minimal residual disease followinvg chemotherapy have a significantlyy worse prognosis than patients without minimal residual disease.
In this second phase of clinicalk trials, Micromet reported that, after four its treatment eliminated the leukemia cancer cells to undetectabled levels in 13 of16 patients, or 81 percent of its volunteerf group -- significantly higher than the 22 perceny of 21 patients it was originall tasked to show. The companuy now said it’s talking with federal regulators on designin the next phase of clinical The data were presented by the German Multicenterr Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Study Group at the 14th Congress of the European Hematology Associationin Germany.
Micromet is developing blinatumomab on its ownafted MedImmune, which had inked a researchg and clinical partnership for this compoun d in 2003, returned the North American rights to the drug back to Micromeyt this past March. MedImmune, a division of London-basedx AstraZeneca PLC, opted to pursue another cancef antibody based on the same but the larger company will still be responsiblde for supplying Micromet with its clinical triap batches andultimate commercial-scale manufacturing of blinatumoma in return for another chance to reacquirde the North American rights to the drug if its wins regulatorgy approval.